Dunno anything about a Terrible Churnadryne. I had a Terrible Hemorrhoid once. Is it anything similar?

But, putting all seriousness aside, I do know that the woman who wrote the Terrible Churnadryne thing also wrote a series of books about The Mushroom Planet. Judging from the cover illustration, it looks like she might have taken a few wonderful trips having something to do with mushrooms herself.

I think you need a pheremone check, man. Yours seem to have shifted phase and lost their charm--Gluon thinks you're a disguised Boson. See his hadron? Could be thyroid, or mebbe your karma needs adjusting. He likes to chase old karmas.

Man!! VOTED you out? What kind of ship are you running there, pal? If I ran the library anyone who wanted to vote about me doing so would be polishing the stacks for a week. Arrr Begarrrr, they would!!

Give 'em the Black Spot, there's a good lad. Or I'll sic Gluon on them. They wouldn't want that!! They wouldn't be able to stand the Uncertainty of it. No one can tell what slot he's going to pop out of next!

Yup. I was voted (Down, Gluon, dammit!) out of office. I've been given -- at the insistance fo the staff! -- a larger one. One with three nice-sized windows. L-shaped, one leg will be my desk area and the other a bookcased spot where you can peruse the older stuff we have (like the first edition of Twain's "The American Claimant") that we want to protect. (Dog, gitcher goddam nose outa my crotch! You a pervert or somethin'?) I'm also getting a new desk chair.

My old office will be used for storage for Technical Services' stuff, and may very well become the server farm by this time next year. I don't wanna go there, I don't WANNA go there, I don't wanna be both a Director AND a System Administrator! (But there are 21 other libraries who would be depending upon me, so I'd have to.

Anyway, by this time tomorrow I'll be out of office and into my new one.

That's 'cause my staff LIKES me. Seriously. I was going to stay where I was, but was told Otherwise: "Your current office isn't suitable for a Library Director. Move it." And I always do what women tell me, 'cause it's easier that way.

Which brings up the question "If Gluon is a cross between a dog and a duck, do we call him a 'dock' or a 'dug'?" It would be easier if he were a cross between a dog and a chicken. Then we would call him a "dicken". But a dicken wouldn't say "Quark!" A dicken would say "Buck-buck-buck-bark!"

That there guy in the Quark picher sure has got good taste in suits, don't he? Looks jist like one I saw at the concert tother night, ceptin' that one was green an blue and the guy wearin' it had on a Stetson and boots and of course his shootin' arn. The band was playin' Copeland's Billy The Kid Suite and got the audience all riled up. They was shootin' out the lights an everthing afore the music stopped. Everbody had themselves a right good time.

"In physics, gluons are the bosonic particles which are responsible for the strong nuclear force. They bind quarks together to form protons and neutrons as well as other hadrons; their electric charge is zero, their spin is 1 and they are generally assumed to have zero mass (although a mass as large as a few MeV may not be precluded). Gluons are ultimately responsible for the stability of atomic nuclei; there are eight different kinds of gluons. "

I guess Amos isn't really looking for something to do--no one has arrived to clean my house. It's a cool morning but I already have the sprinkler going to soften up the flowerbed I plan to dig today. If you plan to clean my house wipe your feet at the door before you go in so you don't add to the problem.

Stilly, let's get real. The Dog-duck's name is GLUON. His SOUND is Quark, Quark. You can't ride to Texas on a sound, for cryin' out loud (so to speak)! You'd fall between the nodes!! Boom!! End of ride!

May I suggest you find someone local, like Milagra Manuela Cantaba, or one of her many sisters?

Oh, sorry, I hadn't had enough caffiene pumped into my system yet when I sent it. My memory was a little fuzzy. And anyway, there is an image of the quark that has entered the discussion, so you'll just have to consider riding sound waves.

Well, I've done it. After much work, I've solved the problem of Blinkin. See the obit thread about him. Took a lot of shoeleather, a lot of brainwork, but using ol' Sherl's adage that when you've eliminated the impossible whatever is left is the truth I did it.

We called him "Sherl" back in the detective school. Sherlock Holmes, who was born "Sherringford" but changed his name. Well, actually, we called him "Sherl" because he was really a she, and the names were "Shirley" and "Sheri" respectively. "John" Watson was really named "Joan", too, but nobody at detective school gave a rat's ass about the relationship between the two. They were nice people, bought the rounds when their turns came, and went on to make a bit of a name for themselves in the detecting biz.

Someday I'll tell you about "Mickey" Spillane. But here's a hint: "Mickey" was a cover name; the REAL name was one closely associated with another "Mickey."

So why have you been wasting your time on cartoon characters, sir, when your new office and your house need work? Hmnmmmm?

I am that gadfly which God has given the state and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. And as you will not easily find another like me, I would advise you to spare me.

Well, I am sorry. I thought, as a librarian, you would recognize a metaphor -- not just any metaphor but Socrates' own metaphor for the role he claimed in Athenian society in his Apologia, just before the hemlock episode.

But anyway, to answer your question -- come from maggots? Certainly not. Sometimes known to associate with them, to be sure. Old Socks had the same problem, man.

Actually, Gad ol' chap, my grass needs cutting. But it has gotten quite dark, what with night and all, and I'm rather afraid to cut my grass right now. Not because of the dark, but because cutting grass in the dark could possibly lead to, well, accidents. I've found, for instance, that I'm quite attached to my toes. On the other hand, I have little feeling one way or the other about YOUR toes, so feel free to come up and I'll let you use the mower.

Oh, I recognized it. I also recognized the allusion made by Socrates to the gadfly sent by (I believe) Hera to harass (I believe) Io. I make the disclaimer because, frankly, I'm too tired to look up who sic'ed the gadfly on who and why.

I can see much the same thing down at the Hi-Ho Bar when Squirrel Tooth Alice and The Cowboys' Friend have had too much to drink and get into a hair-pulling and blouse-ripping contest over men, and chase each other out the door and down the street throwing rocks at each other. Hera and Io were just a more genteel version of it, them being goddesses and all.

When you finish mowing Rapaire's lawn (and don't let him con you into mowing the 18 holes behind the fence at his house!) you can come mow my 1/2 acre. It'll seem puny by comparison. Today I dug up flower beds instead of mowing. Tomorrow morning I have to mow before I go pick up a friend at the airpoirt . . . anyway, it would be easier if you would just hop down here from Idaho and mow my lawn in Edgecliff Village.

Oh heck ! I lawn for tbe good ol' days ...... Mother - where are ya ? These combatants will all end up grassing each other up and remaining half cut for a while. Hay ! Bring back the sheep.......quick ! ;-)

When I awoke this morning, I looked out at my backyard and it had disappeared. The golf course is still there, but where the backyard was is now nothing at all. Lilacs, roses, the old satellite antenna mast -- all gone. The walk along the edge of the house is still there, so's the fence, and the sprinkler system is just sort of floating, but the yard itself (including the dirt) is gone.

I guess you must have given someone an inch, Rapaire. Someone who probably you shouldn't have given an inch to. It's understandable -- they can say, "Rapaire gave his all!!!" You did what you could with what you had.

But you know, as well, that there are people in this world of whom it is wisely said, "Give them an inch and they'll take a yard!"

My backyard has returned. Apparently it just needed a break or something. I wish it wouldn't do that. I thought someone had stolen it, like the neighbors stole my fence last September (and still haven't returned it).

Was it Eliot's toilet I saw? Was it felt? I had a hit left, I saw We panic in a pew. We passed Odessa. Pew! We placed a decal pew. We'll let Dad tell Lew What! So he is hanged, is he? So what? Won't lovers revolt now?

An old Indian chief sat in his Hogan on the reservation, smoking a ceremonial pipe and eyeing two U.S. government officials sent to interview him.

"Chief Two Eagles" asked one official, "You have observed the white man for 90 years. You've seen his wars and his technological advances. You've seen his progress, and the damage he's done."

The Chief nodded in agreement.

Two official continued, "Considering all these events, in your opinion, where did the white man go wrong?"

The Chief stared at the government officials for over a minute and then calmly replied: "When white man found the land, Indians were running it. No taxes, No debt, Plenty buffalo, Plenty deer, Plenty beaver, Women did all the work, Medicine man free, Indian man spent all day hunting and fishing, all night having sex." Then the chief leaned back and smiled.

"Only white man dumb enough to think he could improve system like that."

One should memorize the first fifty decimal places. In doing so, it may help to notice the repetition of the consecutive digit pairs '79', '32, and '38'.

Buckminster Fuller was standing a watch at the stern of an aircraft carrier in the second world war. He got to watching the churning wake and traced it all the way to the calm horizon. "What makes that wake?" he asked himself. "Bubbles," he answered himself, "tiny, perfectly round air bubbles. But how many? More than I can count. And each one as near perfectly round as I can imagine. Now to make something round, I'd have to multiply by Pi, which is a transcendental number defined to an infinite number of decimal places. Imagine Pi used to make each of those uncountable bubbles, just for me to see this wake. I don't believe it. I don't believe nature uses Pi!"

So how come we do?

See The Value of Pi for some more thoughts about this. You could call it the Antoinette theorem.

One March 14 (Pi Day, 3.14) my nephew Tony won a contest by memorizing pi to 200 (that's right, two hundred) decimal places. By doing so, and proving it by recitation, he won a genuine Pizza Hut "Personal Pan Size" pizza!

The nearest runner-up only did 25 decimal places.

Tony is now studying theoretical physics at the Illinois Institute of Technolody. The teacher who had to check Tony's recitation is now watching "the little birdies" from a special room at the State Center For The Reality Challenged. Considering those who are at IIT, I'm not certain there's a lot of difference between the institutions.

Locked up in a room alone, On and he madly drones. Muttering repeated lines On the circle's form divine Weeping with internal anguish, Bolts of thought his spirits vanquish; And the theme of every moan: "Pi is not a palindrome!"